The White House said it is cooperating with the US Department of Justice and the National Archives after discovering potentially classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president in the think-tank’s office in Washington.
Richard Sauber, the president’s special counsel, said in a statement on Monday that the president’s personal attorney discovered the documents in early November while packing his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think-tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, opened in 2018. The center released a statement after the 2020 presidential election saying it would operate “completely independently” of the Biden administration.
Sauber said Monday that Biden had “periodically” used the office space where the documents were found from 2017 until he began his 2020 presidential campaign.
Sauber said the documents “appear to be records of the Obama-Biden administration, including some documents with confidential signatures”. Biden served as vice president under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
The special counsel said Biden’s personal attorney discovered the document on November 2 of last year, and the White House notified the National Archives the same day. Sauber added that the documents “were not the subject of any previous requests or inquiries” and that Biden’s personal attorney has since cooperated with the National Archives and the DoJ.
CBS News reports that Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, has assigned the US attorney in Chicago to review “about 10” documents. The FBI is also involved in the probe, according to CBS.
The DoJ declined to comment and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal law requires that official records made or received by the president or vice president during their time in the White House be turned over to the National Archives when they leave office.
The law has made headlines in recent months after FBI agents conducted a raid last summer at Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
The search turned up more than 100 documents marked secret, secret or secret from his time in office. Court filings show Trump faces criminal investigations for possible violations of the Espionage Act as well as obstruction of justice investigations and mishandling of public records.